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Revolution & Constitution: 1765 - 1799

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 23 pages.
The U.S. Constitution endorsed slavery and favored the interests of the owning classes. What kind of Constitution would have resulted from founders who were representative of the entire country? That is the premise of this role play activity.

Teaching Activity. By Thom Thacker and Michael A. Lord. 4 pages.
An art contest is used as the basis from which students can examine primary historical documents (advertisements for runaway slaves) to gain a deeper understanding of the institution of slavery in the North.

Teaching Activity. By Bob Peterson. 14 pages.
A role play on the Constitutional Convention which brings to life the social forces active during and immediately following the American Revolution with focus on two key topics: suffrage and slavery. An elementary school adaptation of the Constitution Role Play by Bill Bigelow. Roles available in Spanish.

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 16 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 5 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the Revolutionary War as "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight," as well as the failure of early Americans to complete a full revolution.

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olsen-Raymer.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 3 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the role and dissent of indentured servants in American colonial history.

Background Reading. By Ray Raphael. 7 pages.
Based on his book Founding Myths, Raphael critiques the textbook portrayal of the American Revolution. The textbooks say that "a few special people forged American freedom" which "misrepresents, and even contradicts, the spirit of the American Revolution."

Book - Non-fiction. By Gretchen Woelfle. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. 2016. 238 pages.
Profiles of African American, free and enslaved, during the American Revolution for upper elementary to middle school.

Book - Non-fiction. By Ray Raphael. Series editor: Howard Zinn. 2002.
Using hundreds of primary sources, this book tells the more accurate, populist, complicated, and interesting story of the American Revolution.

Books - Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2005, with a new introduction by Anthony Arnove in 2015. 784 pages.
Howard Zinn's groundbreaking work on U.S. history. This book details lives and facts rarely included in textbooks—an indispensable teacher and student resource.

Digital archive and crowdsourcing project that provides access to information, through thousands of print advertisements, about freedom-seekers and their would-be enslavers in the 18th and 19th centuries.